Orgai 

 Origii 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



504 



of the same science comes in to confirm the 

 generalization, and extend it over the innu- 

 merable creatures which have existed and 

 have passed away. This one plan of organic 

 life has never been departed from since time 

 began. ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 4, p. 117. 

 (Burt.) 



2480. ORGANS, STIMULUS, 

 GROWTH^ AND DECAY OF Some Laws 

 in Pedagogy. " A vigorously used organ 

 withdraws nourishment from the neighbor- 

 ing organs and hinders their development." 



" An organ that is not used loses its 

 energy." 



" An organ overstrained easily becomes 

 useless." 



" When a single function suffers, all the 

 others suffer with it, and harmonious de- 

 velopment is out of the question." 



" Organic development proceeds from the 

 inner to the outer; the reverse process is 

 impossible." 



" Artificial stimulus to growth leads to 

 decay." 



" The separate functions succeed each 

 other, but they do not appear simultane- 

 ously." 



" Only that which develops slowly is 

 capable of long development." VAIHINGER 

 Address Tfefore Scientists. (Translated for 

 Scientific Side-Lights.) 



2481. ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF 



MAN Likeness to and Difference from Lower 

 Animals Unity of Nature a Unity of Plan. 

 Man, when regarded merely as an organ- 

 ism, is closely related to the lower animals. 

 His body is constructed on the same general 

 plan with theirs. More especially, he is 

 near akin to the other members of the class 

 Mammalia. But we must not forget that 

 even as an animal man is somewhat widely 

 separated from his humbler relations. 

 . . . It is easy to say that every bone, 

 every muscle, every convolution of his brain, 

 has its counterpart in the corresponding 

 parts of an orang or a gorilla. But, ad- 

 mitting this, it is also true that every one 

 of these parts is different, and that the ag- 

 gregate of all the differences mounts up to 

 an enormous sum total, more especially in 

 relation to habits and to capacities for ac- 

 tion. Those remarkable homologies or like- 

 nesses of plan which obtain in the animal 

 kingdom are very wonderful, and the study 

 of them greatly enlarges our conceptions of 

 the unity of Nature; but we must never 

 forget that such general agreements in plan 

 cover the most profound differences in de- 

 tail and in adaptation to use, and that, 

 while they indicate a common type, this 

 may rather point to a unity of design than 

 to a mere accidental unity of descent. 

 DAWSON Facts and Fancies in Modern Sci- 

 ence, lect. 4, p. 139. (A. B. P. S.) 



2482. ORIGIN OF DEEP-SEA LIFE 



No Close Resemblance to Geologic Fauna. 

 Whence came the curious creatures that 



live mostly in total darkness and can sus- 

 tain without injury to their delicate and 

 complicated organization the enormous pres- 

 sure of the great depths? Are they the 

 remnants of the fauna of shallow prehis- 

 toric seas that have reached their present 

 position by the gradual sinking of the ocean 

 basins? Or, are we to look upon the abys- 

 mal region as the nursery of the marine 

 fauna, the place whence the population of 

 the shallow waters was derived ? Neither of 

 these answers is supported by the facts 

 with which we are now well acquainted. 

 The fauna of the abysmal region does not 

 show a close resemblance to that of any of 

 the past epochs as revealed to us by geology, 

 nor are we justified in assuming, without 

 much stronger evidence than we now pos- 

 sess, that the oceans have undergone any 

 such great depression as this first theory 

 presupposes. HICKSON Fauna of the Deep 

 Sea, ch. 3, p. 54. (A., 1894.) 



2483. ORIGIN OF GEOMETRY 



Loves to Divide Space. The whole science 

 of geometry may be said to owe its being 

 to the exorbitant interest which the human 

 mind takes in lines. We cut space up in 

 every direction in order to manufacture 

 them. JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 20, p. 

 150. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



2484. ORIGIN OF MARINER'S 

 COMPASS FOREVER LOST Magnetism 

 Known, Polarity Unsuspected. How or 

 when the tendency of a freely suspended 

 magnet to set itself in a nearly north 

 and south direction was first discovered 

 is a question,/ the answer to which is 

 probably forever lost. The civilized world 

 remained in ignorance of the fact for nearly 

 eighteen centuries after the attractive effect 

 of the lodestone had become well known. 

 Altho, as I have already stated, it is not im- 

 possible to conjecture that the phenomenon 

 was familiar to the ancestors of primitive 

 civilization, who, from the highlands of 

 Central Asia, dispersed in many races over 

 the earth; yet the knowledge came to the 

 people of the Middle Ages anew, through 

 the invention of the first and greatest of 

 electrical instruments the mariner's com- 

 pass; first, in its utilization of the mysteri- 

 ous force existing in the magnet; greatest, 

 in that it has contributed more than any 

 other product of human intelligence to the 

 progress and welfare of mankind. PARK 

 BENJAMIN Intellectual Rise in Electricity, 

 ch. 3, p. 53. (J. W., 1898.) 



2485. ORIGIN OF NAME GORIL- 

 LA" Voyage of Hanno from Carthage. 

 About twenty-five centuries ago a voyager 

 called Hanno is said to have sailed from 

 Carthage, between the Pillars of Hercules 

 that is, through the Straits of Gibraltar 

 along the shores of Africa. " Passing the 

 Streams of Fire," says the narrator, "we 

 came to a bay called the Horn of the South. 

 In the recess there was an island, . . . 



